The Fallacy of Seperation Of Church And State

For too many years the politicians and courts of this country have been able to perpetrate the false
idea of "separation of church and state". They claim that they founding fathers of this nation
designed this to be a basis for our form of government. Nothing could be further from the truth.
They did intend to keep government out of the religious arena by disallowing a national religion such
as existed in England with the Church of England; however the intent was never to keep the church
out of government. Please consider my statement in light of these quotations from a few people you
may have heard of:

Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention June 28, 1787:

"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proof I see of the
truth - that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground
without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been
assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the House, they labor in
vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without this concurring aid
we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall
be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves
shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind
may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Government by
human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest. I therefore beg leave to move -
that henceforth prayers imploring the audience of Heaven, and its blessings on our
deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and
that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service."

Thomas Jefferson:

"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only
firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of
God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my
country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever."

Alexis de Tocqueville:

"Religion in America ... must nevertheless be regarded as the foremost of the political
instituions of that country ... I do not know whether all the Americans have a sincere faith
in their religion, for who can search the human heart? But I am certain that they hold it to
be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This position is not
peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation, and to every
rank of society ... Christianity, therefore, reigns without any obstacle, by universal
consent."

"Upon my arrival in the United States, th religious aspects of the country was the first
thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the
great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was
unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of
freedom pursuing courses diametrically oppposed to each other; but in America I found
that they were truely united, and that they reigned in common over the same country."

US Supreme Court - Church of the Holy Trinity vs US 1892:

"This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent
to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation ..... These are not
individual sayings, declarations of private persons: they are organic utterances, they
speak the voice of the entire people .... These, and many other matters which might be
noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this
is a Christian nation."

North Carolina Constitution 1876

"No person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the
divine authority of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles
incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any
office or place of trust in the civil department within this State."

John Jay - First Chief Justice US Supreme Court:

"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as
the privilege of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."

George Washington - Inaugural Speech to Congress April 30, 1789:

"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the the Invisible Hand which
conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which
they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been
distinguished by some token of providential agency ... We ought to be no less persuaded
that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a Nation that disregards
the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained."

Abraham Lincoln:

"It is the duty of nations as well as men to own their dependence upon the overruling
power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured
hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime
truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only
are blessed whose God is the Lord."

"All the good from the Saviour of the World is communicated through this Book; but for
the Book we could not know right from wrong. All the things desirable to man are
contained in it."

Woodrow Wilson:

"The Bible ... is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life, the nature of
God and spiritual nature and need of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the
spirit in the way of peace and salvation ... America was born a Christian nation. America
was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived
from the revelations of the Holy Scripture."

John Adams:

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions
unbridled by morality and religion ... Our constitution was made only for a moral and
religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Judge Joseph Story - 19th Century Supreme Court Justice:

"The real object of the First Ammendment was not to countenance, much less to advance,
Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all
rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment
which would give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government."

"We are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment [in the First
Ammendment] to an indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity,
which none could hold in more reverence than the framers of the Constitution ....
Probably, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the Ammendments to it ...
the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to
receive encouragement from the State."

House Judiciary Report in 1854:

"Chistianity must be considered as the foundation upon which the whole structure rests.
Laws will not have not permanence or power without the sanction of religious sentitment,
without a firm belief that there is a Power above us that will reward our virtues and punish
our vices. In this age there will be no substitute for Christianity: that, in its general
principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and
permanence of free institutions. That was the religion of the founders of the Republic, and
they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants. There is a great and very
prevalent error on this subject in the opinion that those who organized this Government
did not legislate on religion."

"The great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the
pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

Patrick Henry:

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not
by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For
this very reason people of other faiths have been afforded asylums, prosperitity and
freedom of worship here."

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania - Updegraph vs The Commonwealth 1824:

"No free government now exists in the world unless where Christianity is acknowledged
and is the religion of the country ... Its foundations are broad and strong, and deep .... It is
the purest system of morality, the firmest auxialry, and the only stable support of all
human laws."

"Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law ...
Thus this wise legislature framed this great body of laws, for a Christian country and
Christian people ... No society can tolerate a willful and despiteful attempt to subvert its
religion, no more than it would to break down it laws - a general, malicious and deliberate
attempt to overthrow Christianity, general Christianity."

Calvin Coolidge:

"The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the
Bible that it would be difficult to support them if the faith in their teachings would cease to
be practically universal in our country."

Continental Congress - May 16, 1776:

"The Congress ... desirous ... to have people of all ranks and degrees duly impressed with
a solemn sense of God's superintending providence, and of their duty, devoutly to rely ...
on His aid and direction ... Do earnestly recommend ... a day of humiliation, fasting and
prayer; that we may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold sins and
transgressions, and, by a sincere repentance and ammendment of life ... and through the
merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain His pardon and forgiveness."

Noah Webster:

"When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers' let it be
impressed upon your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will
rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends upon the
faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men
in office, the government will soon be corrupted ... If a republican government fails ... it
must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make
and administer the laws."

Charles Finney - 19th Century Minister and Lawyer:

"The Church must take right ground in regard to politics ... The time has come that
Christians must vote for honest men, and take consistent ground in politics or the Lord
will curse them ... God cannot sustain this free and blessed country, which we love and
pray for, unless the Church will take the right ground. Politics are a part of religion, in
such a country as this, and Christians must do their duty to their country as a part of their
duty to God."